Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

“The Buried Giant,” by Kazuo Ishiguro, has faced many different reactions and interpretations since its publication. The debates are mostly on the literary categorization of this novel. The majority of reviews labeled the novel a fantasy. There are also claims that it can be considered as a historical novel, a myth, or even psychological modernist novel or a novel dealing with the postmodern conflicts. This paper tries to go through different ideas regarding this novel’s categorization to claim that this novel belongs to a new era that is called “Metamodern.” In their article “What is Metamodernism?”, Vermeulen and van-den-Akker, two Dutch thinkers assert that, “Whereas postmodernism was characterized by deconstruction, irony, pastiche, … the discourse surrounding Metamodernism engages with the resurgence of sincerity, hope, romanticism, affect, … and universal truths, whilst not forfeiting all that we’ve learnt from postmodernism.” This novel and the reaction towards the categorization of this novel seem to be the best chance to claim that the new era has arrived. Relying on the definition of Metamodernism, this study shows that “The Buried Giant” can be considered as a Metamodern novel. It also focuses on some of the stylistic and thematic differences between Metamodernism and Postmodernism.